Cancer is a horrible illness that has been nearly impossible to figure out. Scientists have had a difficult time finding a cure for cancer because no two cases of cancer are the same. Everyone’s bodies are different and therefore, those who develop cancer do not have identical cancer cells. For researchers this means that it is just that much harder to figure out how to stop cancer because finding a link between cases is like finding a needle in a hay stack.

In the past it has been hard for researchers to gather data on cancer to study, but with the recent development of more advanced technology it is much easier to access information from many different cases. Now that there are easily accessible databases full of medical records concerning cancer, researchers have the resources to dig deeper into what could possibly take down cancer. The problem is that no matter how many researchers you have, it takes a lot of time to comb through large amounts of data in search of a tiny clue. This is where Big Data becomes a great tool for scientists and researchers. With the help of data scientists, Big Data analysis goes in and scans through large data sets to find connections and insights that we may not have caught. Not only can Big Data analysis dig more deeply, but it can do this searching much more quickly than we can.

Big Data allows researchers to focus on connecting the dots between significant findings from the data and apply it to a possible cure. Research can become very expensive the longer it goes on, which is why Big Data can be a valuable asset to potentially find a cure faster. Big Data is a great tool for speeding up processes that could otherwise be very tedious. To learn more about how Big Data is doing big things, check out these informational articles!

We have all been there- that frustrating process of trying to find a new doctor that fits your needs. Many times people get placed on an up to four months waiting list to get an introductory visit with a new doctor. This is absurd having to wait months just to meet a doctor and not know if you are even going to like them.

There us a new app out there that is helping people with this issue. The free healthcare app called Amino allows people to research doctors in a way we have never seen before. This healthcare app takes big data from insurance claims and blocks out the personal information, leaving just information about doctors and their practices. Amino tracks doctors like they are athletes and keeps very accurate stats on each one of them. Amino allows you to see how many patients doctors see a day, the amount of tests they run and what they specialize in based on the number of times they have practice that particular skill and its success rate.

This new healthcare app can even show you doctors that have the most experience working with people who show the same symptoms or have the same healthcare issues as you do. Amino is making it extremely convenient for the general population to be matched with a doctor that will best be able to provide them with the health care they need.

The switch to paperless offices has really driven the use of technology in many industries, including healthcare. Not just hospitals but different areas such as physical therapy, nursing homes, etc. are making the switch to digital note taking. There are a couple reasons why this is a a step forward for healthcare and all of its underlying sections. Just a few reasons include research advancement, time efficiency, and monetary savings.

Most healthcare professionals are swamped with patients everyday. The healthcare professional to patient ratio is terribly skewed, causing doctors, nurses, physical therapists and other professionals to see more patients per day than they used to. When attending to this many people everyday, it can be very easy to lose track of individual patient symptoms and begin to lose organization in necessary paperwork. Healthcare professionals are required to keep extremely detailed record of each patient, which can add up to a lot of paperwork. Why let all of these important files just sit in a cabinet? Why not use these real life cases as a resource for researchers? This is what Big Data is doing. The technology that harnesses big data and relays it into understandable connections is what is allowing researchers to tap into the vast amount of real life cases that could be the key to a new cure or better treatment plan.

In order for researchers to quickly access patient files, the records must be digitized. Instead of healthcare professionals taking patient notes and then having to type them into a computer program, why not start with the computer? More and more doctors offices and physical therapy clinics are using tables or laptops to type notes while talking with patients about their symptoms. This may seem a little less personal, but it helps healthcare professionals use their time wisely. Due to their packed case loads, they do not have time after each patient session to sit down and type up their notes. This multitasking is allowing doctors and physical therapists to be much more efficient with their time and potentially get to spend more time actually working with each patient.

By switching to digitized files and multitasking, healthcare fields are saving a ton of money. Offices are no longer wasting mass amounts of paper and dealing with where to store all of their records, they now simply need to ensure they have enough hardware space to store their patient records. Healthcare offices are also making more money by being able to see more patients in a day due to the healthcare professionals multitasking and using their time efficiently. Big Data is making great strides in the healthcare industry and continues to help the field find new solutions and better their practice.

The state of North Carolina has 2 million medicaid patients and pays out $12 billion in Medicaid each year. Due to these high numbers, in 2010 governor Beverly Purdue announced a program to analyze medicaid claims. To do this, IBM was asked to step in to aid with healthcare analytics tools.

Since using the IBM Healthcare analytics there has been a 90% reduction in medicaid fraud. This software allows healthcare providers to see the patterns in medicaid claims and identify faulty claims against true claims. The great part about the use of Big Data analytics is that the IBM software can take the data collected from medicaid claims and put it into a visual format that is easy to understand. This allows for doctors and nurses to identify the fraudulent claims rather that rely on data scientists.

The use of big data analytics in the healthcare system not only aids in picking out the patterns that discover fraud, but it is also showing the population that there are people watching them and that they will be caught.

Thanks to Big Data analytics the state of North Carolina has decreased the rate of medicaid fraud and continues to search for those who dare to commit it.

Eric Dishman shares his personal story of how his 25 year struggle with kidney cancer was finally resolved through Big Data and personalized medicine.

Dishman’s doctors were able to treat him successfully after sequencing his complete genome. For personalized medicine, only 50,000 people on earth have had their entire genome sequenced.

“The National Human Genome Research Institute, (NHGRI) has tracked the costs associated with DNA sequencing performed at the sequencing centers funded by the Institute. This information has served as an important benchmark for assessing improvements in DNA sequencing technologies and for establishing the DNA sequencing capacity of the NHGRI Genome Sequencing Program (GSP). Here, NHGRI provides an analysis of these data, which gives one view of the remarkable improvements in DNA sequencing technologies and data-production pipelines in recent years.”

The Cure for Healthcare Is Personalization

Being able to crunch massive amounts of data using real-time, in-memory computing solutions means that hospitals all over the world can start accessing and analyzing numerous sources of information, from genomes, to electronic medical records (EMR), to clinical trials – bringing them together to create personalized treatments for patients.